Reviews: Alternative Assessment
Submitted by Lois Stanciak
RE: Alternate Assessment
You really do a nice job of providing specific feedback to your peers. It is evident from what you write that you took the time to look at their work. I think it is a really good approach to increase student engagement and retention by having students work in teams on a group project. Having each student be responsible independently as well as part of a group is key to a cooperative learning assignment. Your approach would or should eliminate ‘Hitch-hikers who want to get a grade without contributing to the work. A Google + Conference call would provide immediate feedback and increase engagement as well. Your assessment is clear and to the point. Students would be clear as to how they received their points. You may want to provide specific guidelines (a rubric) for the Retention and summary report. I totally agree with your comments about formative assessments in your last comment. Formative assessments are valuable for both teachers and students. I had the opportunity to take a two week course with Grant Wiggins at Princeton University when he and Jay McTighe were completing their work on Understanding by Design. Because of a grant I was able to secure, I had both individuals work as consultants with the teachers at our high school. Schools of education are getting better about training teachers to develop assessments, but you would be surprised at the number of teachers, trainers, staff developers who have not had ANY training in assessment. When they think of assessment, they think of a test. A test does not give an instructor much information about the skill set the student has or does not have. A test cannon tell an instructor specifically what a student knows or is able to do. Since you shared your ideas with me, I would like to share my interpretation of Wiggins Bill of Rights for students with you.
All students are entitled to the following:
1. “Worthwhile (engaging, educative, and “authentic”) intellectual problems that are validated against worthy “real-world” intellectual problems, roles, and situations” Basically, Wiggins advocates assessments that students can learn from. He is not an advocate of Scantron or multiple choice tests. He believes that authentic “real world” problems are of value. He is definitely an advocate of projects and rubrics. Rubrics are important because they allow the instructor to provide students targets to meet. He spent a great deal of time talking about evidence that a teacher would accept as proof of understanding. In Understanding by Design there are six forms of evidence accepted: Each of these forms is acceptable to ensure understanding.
2. “Clear, apt, published, and consistently applied teacher criteria in grading work and published models of excellent work that exemplifies standards” Wiggins emphasizes the need for criteria, standards, targets and rubrics. Rubrics allow teachers to be less subjective and more objective. I was a student at the University of Chicago and we were “asked” to participate in a research study that focused on grading. Graduate students were given sets of papers written by students and asked to grade and evaluate the papers without giving any guidelines and to base their A-F grades on what we determined were acceptable standards for writing assignments. All of us were graduate students in the English Language Arts and Literature Program at University of Chicago. Six weeks later we were invited back in to evaluate another set of papers and given the same directions. The study concluded what many of the same studies continue to conclude. The same paper was given an “A” by some evaluators; others gave the same paper an “F”. Six weeks later, the same evaluator gave the paper given an “A” the first time around, was now given a “D” or “F.” Inconsistencies are rampant
3. “Minimal secrecy in testing and grading” Wiggins believes that evaluations and grading should be transparent. Students should not be surprised by the tests they are given or the grades they receive. I can remember taking some under graduate level tests and wondering where did this information come from. Gottcha questions are totally unacceptable. He emphasizes the need for criterion referenced tests for students.
4. “Ample opportunities to produce work that they can be proud of (thus, ample opportunity in the curriculum and instruction to monitor, self-assess, and self-correct their work)” Students should produce work that they can be proud of. If the work produced is not as good as it could be, students should have the opportunity to revise their work after receiving constructive feedback. Students should also learn to self-assess and self-correct their work rather than being dependent on the teacher. Rubrics would be good tool to help students move toward self-evaluation.
5. “Assessment, not just tests: multiple and varied opportunities to display and document their achievement, and options in tests that allow them to play to their strengths” Students should have multiple forms of assessments, both formal and informal. Tests are not the only type of assessments students should be exposed to. If a teacher chooses to utilize tests, multiple types and forms of tests should be utilize: multiple choice, essay, key-list, matching, short and long constructed response, etc.
6. “The freedom, climate, and oversight policies necessary to question grades and test practices without fear of retribution” Students should understand the grading and testing policies and feel free to question the teacher so that assessment becomes a true learning experience.
7. “Forms of testing that allow timely opportunities for students to explain or justify answers marked as wrong but that they believe to be apt or correct” Students should feel free to respectfully explain their answer to the instructor and have a conversation about their rationale for their answers.
8. “Genuine feedback: usable information on their strengths and weaknesses and an accurate assessment of their long-term progress toward a set of exit-level standards framed in terms of essential tasks” Feedback needs to be both timely and specific. Students should receive constructive feedback that addresses their strengths and weaknesses. Students should clearly understand what they should have done to do meet the desired expectation or criteria. Again, rubrics that are clearly designed and utilized can help students improve and develop.
9. Scoring/grading policies that provide incentives and opportunities for improving performance and seeing progress against exit-level and real-world standards.” The standards used should reflect those used in the real-world so that students continuously aim high.
RE: Alternate Assessment
You really do a nice job of providing specific feedback to your peers. It is evident from what you write that you took the time to look at their work. I think it is a really good approach to increase student engagement and retention by having students work in teams on a group project. Having each student be responsible independently as well as part of a group is key to a cooperative learning assignment. Your approach would or should eliminate ‘Hitch-hikers who want to get a grade without contributing to the work. A Google + Conference call would provide immediate feedback and increase engagement as well. Your assessment is clear and to the point. Students would be clear as to how they received their points. You may want to provide specific guidelines (a rubric) for the Retention and summary report. I totally agree with your comments about formative assessments in your last comment. Formative assessments are valuable for both teachers and students. I had the opportunity to take a two week course with Grant Wiggins at Princeton University when he and Jay McTighe were completing their work on Understanding by Design. Because of a grant I was able to secure, I had both individuals work as consultants with the teachers at our high school. Schools of education are getting better about training teachers to develop assessments, but you would be surprised at the number of teachers, trainers, staff developers who have not had ANY training in assessment. When they think of assessment, they think of a test. A test does not give an instructor much information about the skill set the student has or does not have. A test cannon tell an instructor specifically what a student knows or is able to do. Since you shared your ideas with me, I would like to share my interpretation of Wiggins Bill of Rights for students with you.
All students are entitled to the following:
1. “Worthwhile (engaging, educative, and “authentic”) intellectual problems that are validated against worthy “real-world” intellectual problems, roles, and situations” Basically, Wiggins advocates assessments that students can learn from. He is not an advocate of Scantron or multiple choice tests. He believes that authentic “real world” problems are of value. He is definitely an advocate of projects and rubrics. Rubrics are important because they allow the instructor to provide students targets to meet. He spent a great deal of time talking about evidence that a teacher would accept as proof of understanding. In Understanding by Design there are six forms of evidence accepted: Each of these forms is acceptable to ensure understanding.
2. “Clear, apt, published, and consistently applied teacher criteria in grading work and published models of excellent work that exemplifies standards” Wiggins emphasizes the need for criteria, standards, targets and rubrics. Rubrics allow teachers to be less subjective and more objective. I was a student at the University of Chicago and we were “asked” to participate in a research study that focused on grading. Graduate students were given sets of papers written by students and asked to grade and evaluate the papers without giving any guidelines and to base their A-F grades on what we determined were acceptable standards for writing assignments. All of us were graduate students in the English Language Arts and Literature Program at University of Chicago. Six weeks later we were invited back in to evaluate another set of papers and given the same directions. The study concluded what many of the same studies continue to conclude. The same paper was given an “A” by some evaluators; others gave the same paper an “F”. Six weeks later, the same evaluator gave the paper given an “A” the first time around, was now given a “D” or “F.” Inconsistencies are rampant
3. “Minimal secrecy in testing and grading” Wiggins believes that evaluations and grading should be transparent. Students should not be surprised by the tests they are given or the grades they receive. I can remember taking some under graduate level tests and wondering where did this information come from. Gottcha questions are totally unacceptable. He emphasizes the need for criterion referenced tests for students.
4. “Ample opportunities to produce work that they can be proud of (thus, ample opportunity in the curriculum and instruction to monitor, self-assess, and self-correct their work)” Students should produce work that they can be proud of. If the work produced is not as good as it could be, students should have the opportunity to revise their work after receiving constructive feedback. Students should also learn to self-assess and self-correct their work rather than being dependent on the teacher. Rubrics would be good tool to help students move toward self-evaluation.
5. “Assessment, not just tests: multiple and varied opportunities to display and document their achievement, and options in tests that allow them to play to their strengths” Students should have multiple forms of assessments, both formal and informal. Tests are not the only type of assessments students should be exposed to. If a teacher chooses to utilize tests, multiple types and forms of tests should be utilize: multiple choice, essay, key-list, matching, short and long constructed response, etc.
6. “The freedom, climate, and oversight policies necessary to question grades and test practices without fear of retribution” Students should understand the grading and testing policies and feel free to question the teacher so that assessment becomes a true learning experience.
7. “Forms of testing that allow timely opportunities for students to explain or justify answers marked as wrong but that they believe to be apt or correct” Students should feel free to respectfully explain their answer to the instructor and have a conversation about their rationale for their answers.
8. “Genuine feedback: usable information on their strengths and weaknesses and an accurate assessment of their long-term progress toward a set of exit-level standards framed in terms of essential tasks” Feedback needs to be both timely and specific. Students should receive constructive feedback that addresses their strengths and weaknesses. Students should clearly understand what they should have done to do meet the desired expectation or criteria. Again, rubrics that are clearly designed and utilized can help students improve and develop.
9. Scoring/grading policies that provide incentives and opportunities for improving performance and seeing progress against exit-level and real-world standards.” The standards used should reflect those used in the real-world so that students continuously aim high.